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EvolveOrConvolve

(6,452 posts)
4. My suggestions
Sun May 27, 2012, 06:58 PM
May 2012

I've worked as a web developer and owned a consulting company that performed a lot of development work for both the web and desktop. I've been out of the game for a while, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

1. GoDaddy might not be appropriate for you. Judging on the spammed (and now deleted) post above from Mr. GoDaddy, they are interested in selling you something, whether you need it or not. That has been my experience w/ GoDaddy in the past, and combined with their poor ethics I don't suggest them to anyone anymore. I now use http://www.networksolutions.com for the few domains I still manage, but you're free to choose whomever you want. GoDaddy should be far down your list of choices.

2. Any shared hosting site you use has the possibility for performance issues simply because the # of virtual sites that are crammed into each web server sometimes gets enormous. If you end up with thousands of unique visitors each day, you might be okay. If you're getting tens of thousands, you may want to look at a dedicated solution. Those get spendy, so if you don't have a way to monetize the site, you're going to be paying for the service yourself.

3. If a shared plan isn't sufficient, you can try a dedicated server. I used a company called CrystalTech (now named The Small Business Authority) that worked pretty well for me. However, their prices are going to be extremely expensive when looked at in comparisons against shared plans. At CrystalTech, it looks like their pricing starts at about $90 and goes up from there. Note that I'm using CrystalTech as an example because I've used them in the past, and they are fairly representative of what you'll get with a Windows based dedicated solution. You're free to go anywhere you like, and may save some money if you find a Linux based solution.

4. If a shared plan is insufficient, and you don't have the money for a dedicated server, you may want to look at some of the Cloud services. The only one I have experience with is the Microsoft Cloud offering, named Azure. As a developer, it's been really good, but I do more than just dropping websites. I have a couple of web services that serve data to front-end clients. I assume, though, that you can use a cloud service for a regular HTML website. As to the other companies offering Cloud services (like Amazon), I can't speak to them because I haven't used them. I haven't heard anything bad, but again, stay away from GoDaddy if you can. The great thing about the cloud is that you only pay for what you use. If you have light traffic and are using very little storage, you'll pay a lot less. As you get more traffic, you can spin up additional processors, add extra storage space, etc. The monthly costs of a Cloud service can vary greatly, but a small website will probably cost you somewhere between the price of a good shared hosting plan and a bargain basement dedicated plan.

5. E-Commerce is a technology that's pretty mature. Since there are lots of potential solutions out there, you can pick and choose the one you find works for you, without a need to reinvent the wheel. I've used http://www.bigcommerce.com/ in the past with success. Again, you are free to search for a solution that's right for you, but use GoDaddy only as a last resort.

Recommendations

0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

Spam deleted by gkhouston (MIR Team) Go Daddy May 2012 #1
Ok... thanks, GoDaddy. DaveJ May 2012 #2
Remember Go Daddy supporting SOPA? ChromeFoundry May 2012 #3
My suggestions EvolveOrConvolve May 2012 #4
Scalability DaveJ May 2012 #5
Google Analytics trishnikolic Aug 2012 #6
I can use my own monitoring methods as well. DaveJ Aug 2012 #7
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